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Head of Digital & Transformation at Singlife
Rewiring Financial Services: Digital Transformation of Banks and Insurers for a Bold Future
Clarence Lin
Mckinsey & Company has defined Digital Transformation as the “rewiring of an organization, with the goal of creating value by deploying technology at scale.” Digital transformation is not just about implementing new technologies, or putting on ‘digital lipstick’ with a fancy website and having new AI/ML use-cases. Digital transformation covers many aspects of business and involves an overhaul of an organization’s business operations, processes and culture at scale.
Digital Transformation Must Bring Tangible Benefits to Customers
The first thing to set out is to develop a balanced scorecard that defines what will success look like with digital transformation. Digital transformation when executed well should bring about these measurable core benefits to the organization:
● Speed to market
● Scalability of digital solutions
● The ability to acquire and engage customers on their own time and terms
● A lower cost to serve and engage customers
● Excellent customer experience,satisfaction and loyalty
The next step in enabling successful digital transformation relates to 3Ps.
1. Priorities
In digital transformation, focusing on clear priority areas that are linked to measurable business outcomes is necessary. It helps making difficult decisions easier, and helps employees galvanize towards common priorities towards an eventual goal.
2. People
A carefully assembled group of talented employees with strong digital, analytics, project and change management skills tends to produce better results and bring about longer lasting change with digital transformation. Investing in talent for specialized roles such as a Chief Digital Officer, Chief Analytics officer will certainly help as the company pivots with the appropriate guard rails on.
Empowering people, which is putting a defined owner and his team accountable for each transformation initiative also gives rise to superior transformation outcomes.
The Companies That Thrive In Today’s Digital Age Embrace Digital Transformation As More Than A Strategic Project, But Integrate It As A Way Of Doing Business That Is Part Of Its Organizational Philoshopy
3. Processes
Something that some organizations may overlook as a critical component in digital transformation is first embedding us into the customer journey and its processes.
This entails several elements:
- User-centered customer design Customer journeys have to be seamless, be compelling and easy to complete.
- Leveraging data and analytics
There is value in the process of deep diving into seemingly disparate customer data, which provide rich insights for the development of personalized product solutions and tactical offers that customers will find relevant and attractive.
- Experimentation and agile development
Organizations should be quick to trial new products and customers journeys, and not be afraid to take down those that have not borne fruit, and continue with ‘test and learn’. Here, agile delivery with weekly sprints is favored over the ‘waterfall’ sequential release methodology.
In summary, digital transformation is a fundamental reality for businesses today. It is a continuous journey that requires organizational wide tenacity and collaboration. The companies that thrive in today’s digital age embrace digital transformation as more than just a strategic project, but integrate it as way of doing business that is part of its organizational philosophy
